DRIVEWEAR - A Photochromic POLARIZED Lens
designed ...TO WORK IN A CAR!

In the past, clear eyewear was enough.
In bright light conditions, polarized sunwear was enough. This
is no longer true. Today our lives are strongly influenced by
the car, which has changed the way we experience the outdoors.
We need a third category of lenses in our modern, car-centered
world.

The Photochromic Drivewear lenses are
capable of sensing and reacting to varying light conditions both
outside and behind the windshield of the car. From bright
sunlight accompanied by intense, blinding glare, to overcast
inclement conditions, Drivewear lenses provides the appropriate visual solution.

Drivewear lenses
provide glare protection through polarization and enhance and
protect vision through photochromics which respond to both
visible and UV light. By combining the strengths of two important technologies in eyewear today we have developed
the lens of tomorrow, Drivewear.

Drivewear lenses feature a high
efficiency polarizer never before found in such a high contrast,
light color. This color was chosen and designed to maximize
useful light reaching the eye in low light/ overcast conditions.
This polarized film is active in every lighting condition to
block blinding glare and improve visual acuity.

Drivewear is that it is the
only photochromic lens to darken behind the windshield of a car.
Exposed to visible light, the lens changes to a copper color,
which many drivers find is the most comfortable color for
driving. This Drivewear color was
designed to both remove excess light and provide good traffic
signal recognition.

Outdoors, Drivewear
is activated by UV and visible light and deepens to a dark
reddish-brown color which provides protection from bright light
and blinding glare, and allows excellent colors and green
recognition. Because green is the most common color in the
natural landscape, it's a great visual experience to have these
enhanced.

Polarized lenses are created by embedding and integrally bonding a
thin piece of polarized film within the lens. The first thin film
polarizers were invented by Edwin Land in 1928. A thin film (resembling
kitchen plastic wrap) is dyed with dichroic materials, such as iodine
crystals and special organic molecules. Stretching the film aligns these
dichroic materials all in the same direction to form a preferred plane
to absorb light. When hit by bright, blinding glare, these aligned
molecules absorb (block) light in that preferred plane, filtering away
the glare from the useful light signal. This absorption and filtering is
illustrated in the figure below.

UNIQUE NUPOLAR®
TECHNOLOGYReduces blinding glare, even with a LIGHT polarizer

The polarization technology
of Drivewear represents a significant breakthrough in the use of
polarization. Typically, efficient polarization only occurs when there
are large quantities of absorbers present - that is, when the lenses are
dark. Drivewear lenses require a high efficiency polarizer that provides
excellent polarizing properties never found before in such a high
contrast, light color. This was achieved only by pushing polarized
manufacturing technologies to new levels of exceptional performance and
light transmittance.

When the photochromic
molecule becomes exposed to an energy source (bright sunlight), a
complex reaction occurs and changes chemical bonding and the shape of
the molecule. What is unique about Drivewear is that this activation is
initiated not only by ultra violet (UV) light, but also by visible
light.